A new submarine cable network consortium has employed Alcatel-Lucent to build the new 100G-based Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS) linking Jacksonville, Fla., to Manta, Ecuador.
Participants in the PCCS system include Cable & Wireless Communications, Setar, Telconet, Telefonica Global Solutions (NYSE: TEF) and United Telecommunication Services (UTS).
Set to begin rollout before the end of this year, the 6,000 km PCCS system will begin offering commercial services by Q3 2014.
The new system will help address the need for new bandwidth to support online content such as tourism related services, sports coverage and digital TV throughout the Caribbean.
While Florida and Ecuador are the main points on the system, the 80 Tbps capacity PCCS will also provide connections for the islands of Tortola, Puerto Rico, Aruba and Curacao, in addition to Cartagena in Colombia and Maria Chiquita and Balboa in Panama.
Similar to other submarine cable projects that Alcatel-Lucent has taken a lead role in during recent years, like Seaborn Networks, the vendor will provide its integrated 100G wet plant of cable optimized with submarine fiber and high bandwidth repeaters, power feed equipment and its 1620 Light Manager (LM) submarine line terminal equipped with coherent technology. All of these components will be managed by Alcatel-Lucent's submarine management system.
In addition to equipment, Alcatel-Lucent will oversee project management, system design, marine operations and system commissioning.
This is a big win for Alcatel-Lucent's submarine cable business and comes at a time when it is considering various options for the unit, including spinning it off as a separate company. During the third quarter, the vendor said it was seeing signs of weakness in its submarine cable business, while overall optics division revenues dropped 17.5 percent, or €480 million ($622 million).
For more:
- see the release
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